1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a master operation input device for remote control of a slave manipulator, and a master-slave manipulator comprising the master operation input device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in order to reduce manpower in medical facilities, medical procedures using robots have been under study. Particularly in the field of surgery, various suggestions have been made regarding a manipulator system that uses a manipulator having multidegree-of-freedom (multiarticular) arms to operate on a patient. In connection with such manipulator systems, there has been known a manipulator system (master-slave manipulator) in which a manipulator (slave manipulator) that comes into direct contact with a body cavity of a patient can be remotely operated on by a master operation input device. Recently, there has been also known a master-slave manipulator in which a slave arm of a slave manipulator has seven or more degrees of freedom (three degrees of freedom in position+three degrees of freedom in orientation+redundant degree of freedom).
In general, a slave arm having seven or more degrees of freedom requires complex inverse-kinematic computation to calculate the driving amount of each joint of the slave arm if six or less command values can be input from the master operation input device. One suggestion to avoid such complex computation has been suggested in, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 5-228854. According to Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 5-228854, an operation unit such as a switch or a dial is additionally provided in a master arm (master operation input device) that allows command values for six degrees of freedom to be input by the operation of a handle, thereby enabling command values corresponding to seven degrees of freedom to be input with one hand.